Artist Palette Profiles: Hazel Soan

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As a big-palette enthusiast, I really need practice with limited palettes, which is where Hazel Soan’s 2022 book Art of the Limited Palette comes in. In the book, Soan extols the joys of using a limited palette – how it can make your paintings look more color-rich, less muddy, and more harmonious, while also making your life easier as a painter.

What makes this book convincing is how much I love use of color in Soan’s paintings in the book. Is this because she uses limited palettes, or because she’s generally good at painting? Hard to say, but her limited-palette paintings certainly don’t appear to be limited in hue or value. On the contrary, they seem to glow and vibrate with color!

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Monthly Retrospective: August 2024

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In August, I continued to paint a lot from Unsplash photos. I luxuriated in some summer photos, uncharacteristically painting the current season instead of the one coming up! Then, my painting buddies and I decided to redo Kolbie Blume’s 2021 #PaintingtheWilderness 10-Day Challenge, which one of the first challenges I did that I credit with … Read more

Should I paint while looking at a reference photo?

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I’m really asking. Sometimes my post titles are rhetorical and I already have an opinion, but not this time! Some artists argue that you shouldn’t directly paint from reference photos; you shouldn’t be following them that closely. You aren’t a camera or a Xerox machine. A carbon copy of the photo is not only difficult … Read more

Finding Lightfast Acrylic Gouache

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Recently, I began experimenting with acrylic gouache, which is basically just acrylic paint that dries matte. When I look at ASTM ratings of the lightfastness of paints, they’re often better in acrylic than in watercolor. I suppose it’s because watercolor is so often used in tints, and gum arabic is not a very protective base. … Read more

The Secret of Opus Essential Watercolours

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I recently moved to Vancouver, B.C., Canada from the U.S. The local southwest-B.C. chain art store, Opus, carries most of my favorite watercolor paint brands – Holbein, Daniel Smith, Winsor & Newton, Schmincke – but notably absent is my very favorite, Da Vinci. Nor could I find it offered anywhere in the entire country to … Read more

Adventures with Acrylic Gouache!

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Well, I got out of the gouache game, but not for long! After moving with only my watercolors, I started to miss having a second medium, especially one that forces me to think differently from watercolor and that has different benefits and challenges. While I love the dreaminess and luminosity of watercolor, some types of … Read more

Monthly Retrospective: July 2024

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I finally had a place to work, so I did more painting in July than June. Not everything I painted worked for me, but these eight did. I also began experimenting with acrylic gouache! Watercolor I was feeling kind of homesick for New England which made me not want to paint either New England or … Read more

Why am I not painting? 7 Problems + 21 Solutions

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[UPDATE: An earlier draft of this went up with only 5 problems and 15 solutions.] I didn’t really paint in June, for a bunch of reasons. I feel better when I’m regularly doing art than when I’m not, yet it’s so easy to fall into the pattern of not painting. There are lots of reasons … Read more